ABSTRACT
Surabaya is one of the important cities in Indonesia with a high prevalence of multiculturalism. According to the National Centre of Statistics, after Javanese ethnic people, Tionghoas or Chinese-Indonesians account for 7% of Surabaya’s total population. Multiculturalism creates a limitation in social mobility within the scope of communications: for example, the blasphemy case against a former governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahya Purnama (Ahok), which became the object of much debate. Some people may argue that it is just a slip of the tongue, which may not be considered rude in Chinese-Indonesian communities; however, according to the majority of the Indonesian society, the governor’s speech was unethical. Therefore, this study aims to discover the influence of social mobility on communication and cultural values that Chinese-Indonesians hold with the long-term purpose of bridging the disparity in cultural understanding. This study was conducted by using a quantitative method with two variables, namely social mobility as an independent variable and cultural values as dependent variables. Cultural value indicators are language and social norms. The hypotheses of this study are twofold: 1) social mobility does not influence cultural values and 2) social mobility significantly influences cultural values. The study included a random sampling of 20 Chinese-Indonesians, and was analysed using a linear regression analysis technique. The results of this study proved that social mobility influences cultural values by 5% and social mobility does not significantly influence cultural values. As this study reports a preliminary piece of research, there is much room for improvement, which, in the long run, can hopefully bridge the disparity between cultures in the Indonesian society.
